Ben wasn't the only going going at less than full pace. IMO Rip and Tay were going all out and everyone else was pulling the ``aint rough/aint right'' garbage.

You know what, though? After seeing the same behavior in the 2005 playoffs, it should have been pretty clear that Flip would have a motivational job on his hands. If he was smart, he woulda watched the tape and seen the lack of consistent effort in 05. And he woulda harped on it all year -- ``yeah, I'm here to boost the offense, but if you guys loaf on D like you did in last year's playoffs...''

Instead, Flip kissed their asses, talking about how they can be trusted to do their own things on D, etc. He missed the key point about the 05 playoffs, and therefore had no idea how to approach the team in order to get them in gear for the 06 playoffs. Our guys went in thinking they could flip the switch when they had to, but first they'd see if they could float about and bury a game with 3s. Then they found out in the Cleveland series that they weren't really able to flip the switch. Then they found out in the Miami series that they were completely overmatched -- the other team was playing championship D, giving more effort, and better prepared by their coach.

Now, after watching how guys like Antoine Walker and Jason Williams played hard under Riley, I'd have to say that a coach who can motivate his players and is respected by them is a pretty valuable thing. It's clear that our guy is too much of a wimp, and even if he wasn't, unable to identify what he needs to be saying anyways.

Bottom line is there is plenty of blame to go around from all coaches and players alike. Even Dumars contributed by trading Arroyo mid stream and replacing him with the ineffective Tony Delk.

You can explain Ben's lack of offense but what about his lack of D, rebounding and overall poor play thoughout the playoffs? I am not trying to single him out but its totally unfair to blame Flip for this. RC would not let Ben shoot either and he had the best years of his career under him. And that was playing alongside Michael Curry.

Hopefully everyone learned from it and will not repeat the same mistakes again. If the players were getting tired as the season was winding down then they could have told Flip so he could have made adjustments. Yes he should have played the bench more but the Starters did not seem to mind.

Low - Sorry I am not buying that its all Flips fault. Flip did not tell Ben to only shoot 27% in FT's or to only block 4 shots in the entire Miami series or to make sure his rebounds stayed in single digits.

Ben Wallace is a professional and should have been able to play through any disagreements he was having with the coach at the time. He did not seem to play as hard ever since the Orlando incident - you don't quit on your team..

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Well, facts, stats, and history, prove that when Ben Wallace was included in the offensive scheme he shot higher percentages across the board. Plain and simple: Flip Saunders ended that.

When you have a defensive scheme that results in constantly double teaming and sometimes triple teaming, you have no one in position to block shots because you're constantly giving up easy buckets on the dish with guys running back to defend with the "Oh sh*@" expression. Second, if you keep pulling me out of the game everytime someone decides to foul intentionally, how do you expect me to develop an in-game rhythm whether I play offense OR defense? 3rd, when the guards consistently give up penetration and creates a collapse in our D, it's almost impossible to have a ton of blocks because Ben always has to stop the driver who subsequently dishes and puts Ben in a position to have to play catch-up with whoever is at the rim, resulting in more fouls than blocked shots.

When you're offensive scheme places everyone outside the paint waiting for their next opportunity for a long jumpshot, it leaves ONE person stuck in the lane to rebound 1 against 3 when the defense crashes the board. When your team is more concerned with just trying to get the ball inbounds so they can run the other way to get the points back they just gave up, there isn't much focus on TEAM rebounding either.

Brown had a very strong man-to-man defensive scheme. Flip tossed it. Flip also started the season by saying he would keep the things that were working well and make adjustments to the things that supposedly needed fixing. Neither of those things were present in the playoffs.

We went to the Finals two straight seasons with these players. They are not to blame when all of a sudden they are ineffective. The coach's job is to put players in the best position to succeed. Flip did no such thing. He was more concerned with setting up his "system" than he was with using what we had the best way possible.

Low - what facts? Ben Wallace had his best years defensivly under Rick Carlisle and there was no significant difference in how Flip and Rick treated Ben in the offense. If anything Ben was getting more shots under Flip because he never wanted to be a part of things under Rick.

Besides if Ben had shot 27% from the line under LB then I highly doubt LB would have let Ben get many touches. When hack a Ben was employed in prior years Ben used to hit enough FT's to make the other team pay. In Miami we really got burned by it.

We actually managed to get thinner from 05 to last year. We lost Campbell and Arroyo. The team was going full steam for the entire season and just kind of ran out of gas. Combine that with a better and healthier Miami Heat team and there you go. I am not counting the other hacks we picked up Delk,Evans because they were complete no shows in the post-season.

I agree that Flip was not the best choice but its not fair to single him out as the only reason why we lost and its not fair to blame Ben's woes and severly decreased production on Flip.

Most of what Ben does is away from the ball, you know playing with energy and making things happen. I stopped seeing that from Ben near the end of the season. Not sure what was going on but he can't put all that on Flip. A true professional will work through any differences he has with the coach and put the team 1st.

Lets see how next season progresses. We are almost here. Its going to be very interesting to see how Skiles treats Ben and how he reacts to being on a less talented team.

Low - what facts? Ben Wallace had his best years defensivly under Rick Carlisle and there was no significant difference in how Flip and Rick treated Ben in the offense.

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I'm referring to the offensive improvement under LB, not the defensive performance. His defensive performances have been consistent as evidenced by those 4 DPOY awards he managed to sneak away with. I don't need to justify his defense.

I think you misread where I was going.

But, while we're there.....LB didn't have to worry about Ben shooting 27% because he involved him in the offensive scheme, worked with him on his offensive game, and allowed him to gain a level of comfort and rhythm which, in turn, provided him with the opportunity to improve his percentages and it worked.

Low - LB was only 2 years. Ben had his best years under RC and RC was a transitional defensive fanatic. RC often had 3 or 4 guys running back as soon as the shot went up and it was Ben vs 2-3 guys grabbing the offensive boards. Not a lot of ball movement in that offense either.

I conceide the LB years but what about prior to that is what my point was. Those RC games is where Ben got his triple doubles and often grabbed 20+ boards a game.

There was a definite fall off in the effort Ben was giving near the end of last season. You had to have seen that? For whatever reason Ben stopped putting the team 1st.

Not trying to vilianize the guy but he is not a Piston anymore so I am not going to make excuses.

Hey...he is slightly pulling your chain. I would be more than a little surprised if most people in this forum would not expect Ben to have a good year with Chicago and this should include an easy double-double tour of duty. Motivation works both ways and man he will be motivated.

Ya know, it use to be that a surreptitious code of ethics would run through the ownership levels and it would be extremely rare that players (especially popular and long established ones) would never be traded (at least immediately) within the same division. I don’t think there are ever winners in this type of trading move. Just makes me love John Paxon all the more.

I doubt that old timer GM Jerry Krause would have taken this route. Paxon may be able to get away with this with our old man, but you can bet that a Mark Cuban would have gone after him (make no mistake, this set the program back at least 2 years). Cuban would have said, “Listen you SOB, you tamper like this and next year I will go after Kirk Hinrich. The following year I will go after Luol Deng and Ben Gordon and fu*k the luxury tax."

Cuban was even worse than Davison. He wanted no part of a max deal for Nash. At least the Pistons were going to do it before the post-season debacle.

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A max deal for Ben Wallace starts at over $16 million a year.

The Pistons were never going to give Ben a max deal. That's fantasy. Like a 4 year plan for Darko.

I love this franchise. Love it, love it, love it. But I don't believe a thing they tell me until it happens. I'm too smart for that.

Maybe not giving him a max deal is a good idea. I don't think so, but time will tell who made the smart move. All I know is that when people haven't given Ben credit, or counted him out, he's risen above it all. Betting against a winner is wishful thinking.

The Pistons were never going to give Ben a max deal. That's fantasy. Like a 4 year plan for Darko.

I love this franchise. Love it, love it, love it. But I don't believe a thing they tell me until it happens. I'm too smart for that.

Maybe not giving him a max deal is a good idea. I don't think so, but time will tell who made the smart move. All I know is that when people haven't given Ben credit, or counted him out, he's risen above it all. Betting against a winner is wishful thinking.

Whew. I've been meaning to spill all that since July.

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If the post-season had been different and Ben did not have all those issues then I think the Pistons definetly would have matched Chicago's offer.

Low - LB was only 2 years. Ben had his best years under RC and RC was a transitional defensive fanatic. RC often had 3 or 4 guys running back as soon as the shot went up and it was Ben vs 2-3 guys grabbing the offensive boards. Not a lot of ball movement in that offense either.

I conceide the LB years but what about prior to that is what my point was. Those RC games is where Ben got his triple doubles and often grabbed 20+ boards a game.

There was a definite fall off in the effort Ben was giving near the end of last season. You had to have seen that? For whatever reason Ben stopped putting the team 1st.

Not trying to vilianize the guy but he is not a Piston anymore so I am not going to make excuses.

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My point exactly. I didn't care that Ben had his best statistical numbers during the Cola's years. What I cared about was that LB used Ben and the rest of our defenders to their strengths. Ben overall numbers dropped slightly because the rest of the team defended and rebounded better across the board under LB. They dropped way off when Ben was starting to be used by Flip the same way he was under Cola, primarily because Ben saw it going that way, brought it up early in the season and was promptly ignored. He got pissed, we all do from time to time. Nevermind the fact that he was right.

This particular group of players were successful because of their defensive intensity. None of which was exhibited in this past post season.

If you'll remember, Ben was leading the league in rebounding with The Cola, but the team was dead last in team rebounding. That means the rest of these jackholes just stood around and watched Ben do all the rebounding. If Ben didn't get it no one did. That ended with LB's arrival.

Ben's drop-off was specifically highlighted by his decline in minutes and Flips insistence on increasing the minutes of a defense-less McDyess. As much as I like Dice, he wasn't holding a candle to Wallace in the paint defensively. When you give up 50 pts in the paint, you don't need a few more 15ft fadaways from the post. You need to stop somebody.

My point exactly. I didn't care that Ben had his best statistical numbers during the Cola's years. What I cared about was that LB used Ben and the rest of our defenders to their strengths. Ben overall numbers dropped slightly because the rest of the team defended and rebounded better across the board under LB. They dropped way off when Ben was starting to be used by Flip the same way he was under Cola, primarily because Ben saw it going that way, brought it up early in the season and was promptly ignored. He got pissed, we all do from time to time. Nevermind the fact that he was right.

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i think ben's numberd dropped because he is getting old. his numbers also dropped because he didn't have the drive anymore which is important for rebounding. ben wasn't right. ask joe d.

This particular group of players were successful because of their defensive intensity. None of which was exhibited in this past post season.

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talk to the nba about that.

Ben's drop-off was specifically highlighted by his decline in minutes and Flips insistence on increasing the minutes of a defense-less McDyess. As much as I like Dice, he wasn't holding a candle to Wallace in the paint defensively. When you give up 50 pts in the paint, you don't need a few more 15ft fadaways from the post. You need to stop somebody.

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just who exactly does ben wallace stop??? it sure isn't verajao or shaq. having ben in the game the other team doesn't need to play d they can just foul ben. mcdyess at least keeps the other team honest. he isn't a slouch on defense either although not as good as ben. a one dimensional defensive player in a league that doesn't promote defense just doesn't make sense anymore.

just who exactly does ben wallace stop??? it sure isn't verajao or shaq. having ben in the game the other team doesn't need to play d they can just foul ben. mcdyess at least keeps the other team honest. he isn't a slouch on defense either although not as good as ben. a one dimensional defensive player in a league that doesn't promote defense just doesn't make sense anymore.

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Ben stops anyone he's assigned to defend. Just not ALL 5 PLAYERS at once, because everyone else on the floor is giving free passes into the lane...

You're quite right, simply fouling Ben is what kept that title just out of our grasp in '04 and solidified our position outside of the Finals in '05. Nevermind the fact that Dice is about as effective on D as Barkley was against Karl Malone.

However, I'm sure we would fare much better with super multi-dimensional players like, oh.....say.....Darko?